This is Real Democracy

in Current Affairs, Music | September 20th, 2011

The Israeli mashup artist Ophir Kutiel, oth­er­wise known as Kuti­man, strikes again. His lat­est cre­ation, “This is Real Democ­ra­cy,” offers a mul­ti­me­dia com­men­tary on the messy state of world affairs. Which way will bank­rupt democ­ra­cies and nascent demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ments take us? It’s unclear and a lit­tle unnerv­ing, or per­haps a reminder of Churchill’s famous dic­tum “Democ­ra­cy is the worst form of gov­ern­ment, except for all those oth­er forms that have been tried.” The mashup cap­tures that sense in its own unique way…

The Birth of Film: 11 Firsts in Cinema

in Film | September 20th, 2011

Today, we’re rewind­ing the video­tape to the ear­ly days of cin­e­ma. We’re start­ing in 1878 and then mov­ing for­ward, watch­ing eleven cin­e­mat­ic firsts, the moments when entire tra­di­tions in film were born. The first hor­ror film. The first west­ern. The first sci-fi film. And all of the rest. Some films we have fea­tured here before, oth­ers not. All appear in our col­lec­tion of 400 Free Movies Online. Sit back and enjoy…

If you’re look­ing for the first movie ever made, you can look back to The Horse In Motion, cre­at­ed by Ead­weard Muy­bridge in 1878. Muy­bridge was asked by Leland Stan­ford (rail­road mag­nate, Cal­i­for­nia sen­a­tor, race-horse own­er, and even­tu­al founder of Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty) to answer a pop­u­lar­ly debat­ed ques­tion: When a horse trots, do all four hooves leave the ground simul­ta­ne­ous­ly? Muy­bridge’s stop motion film made it clear that they do.

A great film tra­di­tion – the West­ern – start­ed in 1903 with The Great Train Rob­bery, Edwin S. Porter’s 10 minute film that com­bined west­ern themes with inno­v­a­tive cin­e­mat­ic tech­niques (nar­ra­tive sto­ry­telling, par­al­lel edit­ing, minor cam­era move­ment, loca­tion shoot­ing, etc.). The film famous­ly took its inspi­ra­tion from an event that became the stuff of leg­end: Butch Cassidy’s 1900 train heist, which end­ed with Cas­sidy blow­ing open a safe and escap­ing with $5,000 in cash. Start­ing in the 1920s, John Wayne began shoot­ing the first of many West­erns and took the genre to new heights. You can find 25 Free John Wayne Films right here.

A year before the Wright broth­ers launched the first air­plane flight in 1903, Georges Méliès, a French film­mak­er with already 400 films to his cred­it, direct­ed a film that visu­al­ized a much big­ger human ambi­tion – land­ing a space­craft on the moon. Loose­ly based on works by Jules Vernes (From the Earth to the Moon) and H. G. Wells (The First Men in the Moon), A Trip to the Moon (Le voy­age dans la lune) invent­ed one of our favorite cin­e­mat­ic gen­res – the sci­ence fic­tion movie. Today, many film crit­ics con­sid­er Méliès’ short movie an endur­ing clas­sic. The Vil­lage Voice ranked it #84 on its list of the 100 Best Films of the 20th Cen­tu­ry, and you’ll almost cer­tain­ly rec­og­nize the icon­ic shot at the 4:44 mark.

Chalk anoth­er one up for Georges Méliès. Even before he brought sci-fi to motion pic­tures, Méliès shot Le Manoir du Dia­ble, or The Haunt­ed Cas­tle, in 1896, which many now con­sid­er the first hor­ror movie. In this three minute film, a bat flies into a medieval cas­tle, turns into Mephistophe­les, then gets chased away by a cru­ci­fix. There you have it, the essen­tial ingre­di­ents of the vam­pire film.

100 years ago, J. Sear­le Daw­ley wrote and direct­ed Franken­stein. It took him three days to shoot the short, 12-minute movie (when most films were actu­al­ly shot in just one day). It marked the first time that Mary Shel­ley’s lit­er­ary cre­ation was adapt­ed to film. And, some­what notably, Thomas Edi­son had a hand (albeit it an indi­rect one) in mak­ing the film. The first Franken­stein was shot at Edi­son Stu­dios, the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny owned by the famous inven­tor.

In ear­ly 1920, Robert Wiene pre­miered in Berlin his silent film The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari. Ever since, crit­ics have lav­ished praise upon Cali­gari, call­ing it a mod­el of Ger­man expres­sion­ist film, the great­est hor­ror film of ear­ly cin­e­ma, and an impor­tant influ­ence on direc­tors lat­er work­ing in the film noir tra­di­tion. And, what’s more (spoil­er alert), Wiene’s film intro­duced the first ‘twist end­ing’ to cin­e­ma. Today, you can watch this ground­break­ing film in its entire­ty above, or by down­load­ing it from the Inter­net Archive.

Emile Cohl, oth­er­wise known as “The Father of the Ani­mat­ed Car­toon,” made Fan­tas­magorie in 1908, a film that stitched togeth­er 700 draw­ings, each dou­ble-exposed, cre­at­ing the first ful­ly ani­mat­ed movie. Cohl made over 250 films between 1908 and 1923, of which 37 sur­vive in archives. And sev­er­al – Le cauchemar de Fan­toche (1908) and The Hash­er’s Delir­i­um (1910) – appear right on YouTube.

The artist and car­toon pio­neer Win­sor McCay (1869?-1934) did not make the world’s first ani­mat­ed film. That dis­tinc­tion, we know, goes to Emile Cohl and his 76-sec­ond long Fan­tas­magorie (1908). But McK­ay made a con­tri­bu­tion to car­toons that is arguably even more impor­tant.

Sweet, mis­chie­vous Ger­tie, with her ready tears, excitable nature, and com­plete inabil­i­ty to miss a chance to get her­self in trou­ble, is wide­ly cred­it­ed as the first char­ac­ter cre­at­ed specif­i­cal­ly for ani­ma­tion, and the first to demon­strate a per­son­al­i­ty all of her own. Mick­ey Mouse, Bugs Bun­ny, Bam­bi, even Wall‑e… they all owe a debt to Ger­tie, born cir­ca 1914.

A few weeks ago, we post­ed New York Times crit­ic A.O.Scott’s thought­ful three-minute look back at the sur­re­al­ist clas­sic Un Chien Andalou. The 1929 Buñuel/Dalí pro­duc­tion may well be the world’s most famous bit of ear­ly sur­re­al­ist cin­e­ma, but it was not the first. That hon­or goes to anoth­er very strange (and indu­bitably sur­re­al) short film screened in Paris in 1928. The Seashell and the Cler­gy­man, based on Antonin Artaud’s screen­play about a priest who lusts after a Gen­er­al’s wife, was direct­ed by the cin­e­ma the­o­rist, jour­nal­ist, and crit­ic Ger­maine Dulac (1882–1942).

The world’s first hand-tint­ed motion pic­ture was pro­duced by Thomas Edis­on’s com­pa­ny, Edi­son Stu­dios, in 1895, more than 115 years ago. The dancer, Annabelle Moore (1878–1961), was just a teenag­er when this film was released, and her dance caused both a sen­sa­tion and a scan­dal. (Note the flash­es of under­gar­ment, all the way up to above the knee, about 29 sec­onds in.) The film is also worth com­par­ing with a sim­i­lar but much more del­i­cate­ly paint­ed ver­sion done just five years lat­er by the Lumiere broth­ers.

The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first film to “use spo­ken dia­logue as part of the dra­mat­ic action.” Star­ring Al Jol­son, the very prof­itable musi­cal launched the talk­ing-pic­ture rev­o­lu­tion and helped Warn­er Bros become one of the dom­i­nant stu­dios. We have includ­ed a short clip above, but you can watch the full 89 minute film here, or find it list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 400+ Free Movies Online.

A spe­cial thanks goes to Sheer­ly Avni who helped research and author some of the mate­r­i­al appear­ing in this col­lec­tion.

What It Feels Like to Fly Over Planet Earth

in Astronomy, Video - Science | September 19th, 2011

Here’s what a lit­tle time and cre­ativ­i­ty brings. James Drake, a pro­fes­sor of Physics at U. Mary­land, down­loaded 600 images from The Gate­way to Astro­naut Pho­tog­ra­phy of Earth, stitched them into a mar­velous 60 sec­ond time-lapse film, then post­ed it on his Tum­blr blog, Infin­i­ty Imag­ined, along with this descrip­tion of what the view­er sees:

A time-lapse tak­en from the front of the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion as it orbits our plan­et at night. This movie begins over the Pacif­ic Ocean and con­tin­ues over North and South Amer­i­ca before enter­ing day­light near Antarc­ti­ca. Vis­i­ble cities, coun­tries and land­marks include (in order) Van­cou­ver Island, Vic­to­ria, Van­cou­ver, Seat­tle, Port­land, San Fran­cis­co, Los Ange­les. Phoenix. Mul­ti­ple cities in Texas, New Mex­i­co and Mex­i­co. Mex­i­co City, the Gulf of Mex­i­co, the Yucatan Penin­su­la, Light­ning in the Pacif­ic Ocean, Guatemala, Pana­ma, Colum­bia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and the Ama­zon. Also vis­i­ble is the Earth­’s ionos­phere (thin yel­low line) and the stars of our galaxy.

It’s a won­der­ful long-dis­tance view of our great plan­et. But it’s not the only one out there. Some of our oth­er favorites include:

• Tour­ing the Earth from Space (in HD) – Video — Give NASA 7 min­utes, and they’ll show you the Earth’s most impres­sive land­scapes (includ­ing a giant hur­ri­cane) as seen from space.
• Earth­rise in HD – Video — In Novem­ber 2007, Japan’s Kaguya space­craft orbit­ed the moon and cap­tured the first HD footage of an “earth­rise” and “earth­set.” Stun­ning to see.
• A Day on Earth (as Seen From Space) – Video – Astro­naut Don Pet­tit trained his cam­era on plan­et Earth, took a pho­to once every 15 sec­onds, and then cre­at­ed a bril­liant time-lapse film. Very sim­i­lar to what you see above.

All of these videos appear in our col­lec­tion 125 Great Sci­ence Videos: From Astron­o­my to Physics & Psy­chol­o­gy.

via @brainpicker

Google Brings The Johnny Cash Project to Chrome

in Animation, Google, Music | September 16th, 2011

This week marked the eight anniver­sary of John­ny Cash’s death. Google did­n’t give John­ny a doo­dle, unlike Fred­die Mer­cury ear­li­er this month. How­ev­er the Googlers did cre­ate a spe­cial theme for their Chrome brows­er based on The John­ny Cash Project. And they announced it on Mon­day Night Foot­ball ear­li­er this week. (Watch the com­mer­cial above.)

As you may recall, The John­ny Cash Project was launched as a glob­al art ini­tia­tive to hon­or the lega­cy of the influ­en­tial singer.  The project asked fans to use a cus­tom draw­ing tool to cre­ate per­son­al por­traits of John­ny. Then, the images were inte­grat­ed into a music video set to “Ain’t No Grave,” the first track on the album released posthu­mous­ly in Feb­ru­ary, 2010. The clip right above brings you inside the mak­ing of the crowd­sourced video. The end result can be viewed right here.

Thanks Judy for send­ing this our way. Got a good tip? Ping us any time.

Inside the Renaissance of Iranian Cinema

in Current Affairs, Film | September 14th, 2011

Iran had a rich tra­di­tion of film­mak­ing before the Rev­o­lu­tion of 1979, when the fun­da­men­tal­ists burned cin­e­mas and shut down pro­duc­tions. But, by the late 80s, the cler­ics warmed up to cin­e­ma again and a film­mak­ing renais­sance got under­way. Then, in 1997, the whole world took notice when Abbas Kiarosta­mi won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val for Taste of Cher­ry. Nowa­days, Iran­ian films show up reg­u­lar­ly at film fes­ti­vals world­wide.

Get­ting inside the vibrant Iran­ian film scene has­n’t been ter­ri­bly easy, espe­cial­ly for Amer­i­cans. Blame that on pol­i­tics. But last year, the folks behind the Vice Guide to Film trav­eled to Tehran and put togeth­er a reportage on Iran­ian cin­e­ma past and present. It runs 23 min­utes and over­turns a few stereo­types along the way. Def­i­nite­ly worth a watch.

Note: Accord­ing to our Twit­ter friends, the film should be view­able around the world. We only encoun­tered one excep­tion — Cana­da. So we offer our apolo­gies in advance to Cana­di­an view­ers. You can find us on Twit­ter here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

North Korea’s Cin­e­ma of Dreams

420 Free Movies Online

She Was the One: An Animated 9/11 Remembrance

in History, Life, Media | September 9th, 2011

The first day was all smoke, debris, orga­nized may­hem, and pure dis­be­lief. The next day, real­i­ty hit home. That’s when you walked out in the streets (in my case, Brook­lyn), and saw your first miss­ing per­son sign, one of hun­dreds you’d see over the com­ing months in Man­hat­tan and the out­er bor­oughs. The num­bers you heard on TV, the body count, became real faces — real peo­ple.

In Octo­ber 2003, Sto­ryCorps, a non­prof­it ded­i­cat­ed to record­ing oral his­to­ries of every kind, got under­way with a small Sto­ry­Booth in Grand Cen­tral Ter­mi­nal. Eight years lat­er, it has record­ed and archived more than 35,000 inter­views from 70,000 par­tic­i­pants. And, more recent­ly, it has turned its focus to 9/11 and the days that fol­lowed. The goal: to memo­ri­al­ize in sound every per­son lost on that day. You can vis­it the emerg­ing audio archive here.

The poignant clip above, which tells the per­son­al sto­ry of Richie Pecorel­la and Karen Juday, appears in a larg­er series of Sto­ryCorps ani­mat­ed videos, all avail­able here. You can sup­port the Sto­ryCorps project by mak­ing a dona­tion, large or small today.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Archive of 9/11 TV Cov­er­age Launch­es with 3,000+ Hours of Video

The Making of a Nazi: Disney’s 1943 Animated Short

in Animation, Film, History | September 9th, 2011

Dur­ing World War II, Walt Dis­ney entered into a con­tract with the US gov­ern­ment to devel­op 32 ani­mat­ed shorts. Near­ly bank­rupt­ed by Fan­ta­sia (1940), Dis­ney need­ed to refill its cof­fers, and mak­ing Amer­i­can pro­pa­gan­da films did­n’t seem like a bad way to do it. On numer­ous occa­sions, Don­ald Duck was called upon to deliv­er moral mes­sages to domes­tic audi­ences (see The Spir­it of ’43 and Der Fuehrer’s Face). But that was­n’t the case with Edu­ca­tion for Death: The Mak­ing of Nazi, a film shown in U.S. movie the­aters in 1943.

Based on a book writ­ten by Gre­gor Ziemer, this ani­mat­ed short–stream­able over at Archive.org–used a dif­fer­ent line­up of char­ac­ters to show how the Nazi par­ty turned inno­cent youth into Hitler’s cor­rupt­ed chil­dren. Unlike oth­er top­ics addressed in Dis­ney war films (e.g. tax­es and the draft), this theme, the cul­ti­va­tion of young minds, hit awful­ly close to home. And it’s per­haps why it’s one of Dis­ney’s bet­ter wartime films. (Spiegel Online has more on Dis­ney’s WW II pro­pa­gan­da films here.)

You will find Edu­ca­tion for Death per­ma­nent­ly list­ed in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

Walt Dis­ney Presents the Super Car­toon Cam­era

Frankie: Best Short Film at 2008 Berlinale

in Film | September 8th, 2011

Frankie — he’s only 15 and already get­ting ready for father­hood. He has the best of inten­tions, that’s for sure. But every­thing around him — the lack of a father in his own life, insti­tu­tions that shut him out, the grav­i­ta­tion­al pull of way­ward friends, the fol­ly of youth — make it unlike­ly that this sto­ry turns out well. Direct­ed by Irish film­mak­er Dar­ren Thorn­ton, Frankie was named Best Short film at the Berli­nale Film Fes­ti­val in 2008. A big thanks to Daniel B. for send­ing this our way.…

Oth­er Prize-Win­ning Short Films

The Lunch Date

Father and Daugh­ter: An Oscar-Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Short Film

Ryan: Acad­e­my Award-Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Film

The Great Gatsby and Waiting for Godot: The Video Game Editions

in Books, Literature, Video Games | September 7th, 2011

Some genius­es have tak­en two lit­er­ary clas­sics and reworked them as retro video games. The Great Gats­by Game, obvi­ous­ly based on the clas­sic by F. Scott Fitzger­ald, reworks the game in vin­tage Nin­ten­do Style. The clip above gives you a lit­tle pre­view, but you can always play the game right here. Then, for a lit­tle more absur­dist fun, the Wait­ing for Godot Game awaits you. The game, sport­ing a throw­back 70s look, requires you to down­load a plu­g­in — one we can’t vouch for. So may just want to watch this YouTube clip. You’ll get the schtick pret­ty quick.

By the way, you can read both clas­sics online — Find The Great Gats­by here, and Wait­ing for Godot here. Both are list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Whose Line Is It Anyway? The Complete Improv Series Now Free Online

in Comedy, Television | September 5th, 2011

The improv/comedy series Whose Line Is It Any­way? aired on British tele­vi­sion for a good decade, from 1988 to 1998. Then it made its way to Amer­i­ca and enjoyed an eight-sea­son run. Thanks to some ded­i­cat­ed fans, you can now watch the com­plete US and UK series online. Find Sea­son One of the UK series here, and the first sea­son of the US series here. Or the rest along the top nav­i­ga­tion bar of the site.

Need an intro­duc­tion to the show? How about we get you start­ed with an ear­ly appear­ance by British actor and writer Stephen Fry, some­one we have hap­pi­ly fea­tured here on many oth­er occa­sions. Enjoy.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!